I came across this headline in Car and Driver this morning: The Feds Want to Replace Your Driver’s License with a National ID Card.
I missed it at the time, (probably because I wasn’t actually living in the US then) but evidently there was legislation passed in 2005 which creates federal standards for IDs that can be used to access federal facilities and commercial flights. Almost all Americans use their driver’s licenses for these purposes, so the effect is to impose federal standards on driver’s licenses issued by states. Ten years on, only 19 states are compliant. (See Car and Driver‘s graphic below.)
This legislation came out of the 9/11 Commission, but I have a hard time seeing how this very effectively combats terrorism. The major issue doesn’t seem to be security breaches caused by fake driver’s licenses. It does seem to me to be one more example of overreach by the federal government and an attempt to centralize and standardize things that we needn’t. Whether it’s this legislation, Common Core, or Obamacare, it’s this same attitude that says the federal government knows best and the states need to come into line.
States are different from each other. They have different needs and will make different choices about both the really important – like schools and K-12 curriculum – and the seemingly trivial like driver’s licenses. And that is a good thing. Allowing states to cater to the particular needs of their citizens means those citizens are better served by their governments. It makes state governments more responsive to the needs of their people. And it allows states to learn from each other, observing what works well and implementing policies that have been successful elsewhere. Long may it continue.
